Yasir Rizvi LinkedIn profile — 16,584 followers
Writing

Notes on leadership,stories & the work.

Essays at the intersection of procurement, storytelling and the people who make the work matter.

AI & Automation · Procurement · Future of Work

Agentic AI in Procurement: The Work That Does Not Get Automated Away

For a decade, AI in procurement meant a smarter dashboard. Agentic AI does not advise — it acts. Here is what that changes, and what it does not.

6 min read→
AI & Automation · Procurement Transformation · Process Design

AI-First Process Redesign in Procurement: Stop Automating the Wrong Thing

Most teams are bolting AI onto a broken process and calling it transformation. AI-first means deleting the process and rebuilding from scratch.

5 min read→
AI & Automation · Governance · Risk Management

Responsible AI and Governance in Procurement: What Happens When It Is Confidently Wrong

Everyone wants to talk about what AI can do in procurement. Almost no one wants to talk about what happens when it is confidently wrong.

6 min read→
Procurement Strategy · AI & Automation · CPO Agenda

The Procurement Efficiency Gap: The Math Every CPO Needs to Confront

Workloads up 10%. Budgets up 1%. You cannot hire or work your way out of that gap. There is only one move left.

5 min read→
Procurement Technology · Stakeholder Management · Digital Procurement

Procurement Orchestration: Make the Compliant Path the Easiest Path

Every time you make a stakeholder figure out your systems, you train them to go around you. Orchestration fixes that.

5 min read→
Procurement Strategy · CPO Agenda · Business Value

Beyond Savings: How Procurement Earns a Seat at the Strategy Table

For thirty years procurement has been measured on savings. It is also the reason procurement keeps getting a seat at the table only after the strategy is already set.

6 min read→
Supply Chain · Trade Policy · Sourcing Strategy

Tariff and Trade Volatility: Stop Reacting and Start Building Scenarios

Your sourcing strategy was built for a world that no longer exists. Here is how to stop reacting and start designing for volatility.

6 min read→
Supply Chain Resilience · Regionalization · Supply Chain Strategy

Supply Chain Resilience and Regionalization: Building In, Not Bolting On

For years, resilience was a slide we showed after something broke. That cycle is finally ending — because the shocks stopped being rare.

6 min read→
Spend Analytics · Procurement Technology · Data & Reporting

Spend Visibility in Procurement: Why Half the Picture Is Not Enough

You cannot manage what you cannot see. Most procurement teams are flying half-blind — and building strategy on the half they happen to have data for.

5 min read→
ESG · Sustainable Sourcing · Procurement Compliance

ESG and Sustainable Sourcing: From a Values Conversation to a Compliance One

Sustainable sourcing used to be a values conversation. It is now a compliance one. That shift changes everything about how procurement has to treat it.

6 min read→
Supplier Risk · Third-Party Risk · Procurement Strategy

Supplier and Third-Party Risk Management: Stop Managing Risk Annually

Annual risk assessment is a snapshot of a moving target. By the time you read it, it is already out of date.

6 min read→
Procurement Technology · Digital Sourcing · AI & Automation

The Death of the Traditional RFP: Why the Process Is Dying — Not Procurement

The RFP is slow, painful, and everyone secretly hates it. Now there is a better way — not because the old way was wrong, but because the constraints that created it have gone.

5 min read→
Supplier Relationships · Strategic Sourcing · Procurement Strategy

Supplier Relationship Management: Why Your Best Suppliers Are Choosing Someone Else

Most supplier relationships are just a contract and a quarterly complaint. Your best suppliers have options — and they are choosing who to prioritise.

6 min read→
In-Country Value · GCC Procurement · Localization Strategy

In-Country Value and Localization: Scoring the Right Game in the GCC

In the GCC, ICV is no longer a tie-breaker — it is often the deciding factor. If you are still optimising purely on landed cost, you are scoring the wrong game.

6 min read→
Government Procurement · Public Sector · Procurement Transformation

Government Procurement Transformation: Respecting the Constraints While Pushing Forward

Public sector procurement is where the biggest transformation opportunity in the region quietly sits. The challenge is rarely the technology — it is the change.

6 min read→
SaaS Management · Software Procurement · Indirect Spend

SaaS License Management: Closing the Quiet Budget Leak in Your Software Spend

Somewhere in your organisation, someone just expensed a SaaS subscription you will never see. Multiply that by a few hundred employees and you have the quiet budget leak most companies are bleeding.

5 min read→
Marketing Procurement · Agency Management · Indirect Spend

Marketing and Agency Procurement: The Category Most Teams Quietly Avoid

Marketing is the category most procurement teams quietly avoid. In that gap, real risk accumulates: fee structures nobody understands, IP questions nobody asks, and spend nobody tracks.

5 min read→
Procurement Talent · Future of Work · AI & Automation

Procurement Talent in the AI Era: Moving Up, Not Out

The procurement job you were hired to do is being automated away. That is good news, if you let it be.

6 min read→
Category Management · AI & Automation · Procurement Strategy

Category Management in the AI Era: The Data Does the Seeing, the Professional Does the Deciding

Category management used to run on the gut feel of whoever owned the category longest. AI changes the inputs. But not what you do with them.

6 min read→
Cybersecurity · Supply Chain Risk · Vendor Management

Cybersecurity in the Supply Chain: The Risk Sitting in Someone Else's Server Room

Your biggest cyber risk might not be in your building. It might be sitting in a supplier's server room — and procurement owns the gate.

5 min read→
Leadership · Procurement · Storytelling

Why Every Procurement Leader Should Learn to Tell Stories

Procurement runs on data. But the decisions that actually move are won on stories. Here is why narrative is the most underrated leadership skill in the function.

6 min read→
Gamification · Supply Chain · Learning & Development

How Gamification Transforms Procurement and Supply Chain Training

Teams forget slides in days and remember games for years. Here is how gamified simulations actually change procurement and supply chain behaviour, and how to run one well.

7 min read→